CHAPTER XXVI.

FRENCH MINERS--THEIR MÉNAGE--THEIR CAPACITY AS MINERS--FRENCHMEN AS COLONISTS--SOCIAL EQUALITY IN THE MINES--THE REASON OF IT--AND THE RESULT.

The only miners on the Creek were Frenchmen, two or three of whom lived in a very neat log-cabin, close to the tunnel. Behind it was a small kitchen-garden in a high state of cultivation, and alongside was a very diminutive fac-simile of the cabin itself, which was tenanted by a knowing-looking little terrier-dog.

The whole establishment had a finished and civilised air about it, and was got up with a regard to appearances which was quite unusual.

But of all the men of different nations in the mines, the French were most decidedly those who, judging from their domestic life, appeared to be most at home. Not that they were a bit better than others able to stand the hard work and exposure and privations, but about all their huts and cabins, however roughly constructed they might be, there was something in the minor details which bespoke more permanency than was suggested by the generality of the rude abodes of the miners. It is very certain that, without really expending more time or labour, or even taking more trouble than other men about their domestic arrangements, they did “fix things up” with such a degree of taste, and with so much method about everything, as to give the idea that their life of toil was mitigated by more than a usual share of ease and comfort.

A backwoodsman from the Western States is in some respects a good sort of fellow to be with in the mountains, especially where there are hostile Indians about, for he knows their ways, and can teach them manners with his five-foot-barrel rifle when there is occasion for it; he can also put up a log-cabin in no time, and is of course up to all the dodges of border life; but this is his normal condition, and he cannot be expected to appreciate so much as others, or to be so apt at introducing, all the little luxuries of a more civilised existence of which he has no knowledge.

An old sailor is a useful man in the mines, when you can keep brandy out of his reach; and, to do him justice, there is method in his manner of drinking. He lives under the impression that all human existence should be subdivided, as at sea, into watches; for when ashore he only lengthens their duration, and takes his watch below as a regular matter of duty, keeping below as long as the grog lasts; after which he comes on deck again, quite refreshed, and remains as sober as a judge for two or three weeks. His useful qualities, however, consist in the extraordinary delight he takes in patching and mending, and tinkering up whatever stands in need of such service. He is great at sweeping and scrubbing, and keeping things clean generally, and, besides, knows something of tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering; in fact, he can turn his hand to anything, and generally does it artistically, while his resources are endless, for he has a peculiar genius for making one thing serve the purpose of another, and is never at a loss for a substitute.

But whatever the specialties and accomplishments of individuals or of classes, the French, as a nation, were excelled by no other in the practice of the art of making themselves personally comfortable. They generally located themselves in considerable numbers, forming small communities of their own, and always appeared to be jolly, and enjoying themselves. They worked hard enough while they were at it, but in their intervals of leisure they gave themselves up to what seemed at least to be a more unqualified enjoyment of the pleasures of the moment than other miners, who never entirely laid aside the earnest and careworn look of the restless gold-hunter.

This enviable faculty, which the Frenchmen appeared to possess in such a high degree, of bringing somewhat of the comforts of civilised life along with them, was no doubt a great advantage; but whether it operated favourably or otherwise towards their general success as miners, is not so certain. One would naturally suppose that the more thoroughly a man rested from mental or bodily labour, the more able would he be for renewed exertions; but at the same time, a man whose mind is entirely engrossed and preoccupied with one idea, is likely to attain his end before the man who only devotes himself to the pursuit of that object at stated intervals.

However that may be, there is no question that, as miners, the French were far excelled by the Americans and by the English--for they are inseparably mixed up together--there are thoroughgoing Americans who, only a year or two ago, were her Majesty’s most faithful subjects, and who still in their hearts cherish the recollection. The Frenchmen, perhaps, possessed industry and energy enough, if they had had a more practical genius to direct it; but in proportion to their numbers, they did not bear a sufficiently conspicuous part, either in mining operations, or in those branches of industry which have for their object the converting of the natural advantages of a country to the service of man. The direction of their energies was more towards the supplying of those wants which presuppose the existence of a sufficiently wealthy and luxurious class of consumers, than towards seizing on such resources of the country as offered them the means of enriching themselves in a manner less immediately dependent on their neighbours.

Even as miners, they for the most part congregated round large camps, and were never engaged in the same daring undertakings as the Americans--such as lifting half a mile of a large river from its bed, or trenching for miles the sides of steep mountains, and building lofty viaducts supported on scaffolding which, from its height, looked like a spider’s web; while the only pursuits they engaged in, except mining, were the keeping of restaurants, estaminets, cafés chantants, billiard-rooms, and such places, ministering more to the pleasures than to the necessities of man; and not in any way adding to the wealth of the country, by rendering its resources more available.

Comparing the men of different nations, the pursuits they were engaged in, and the ends they had accomplished, one could not help being impressed with the idea, that if the mines had been peopled entirely by Frenchmen--if all the productive resources of the country had been in their hands--it would yet have been many years before they would have raised California to the rank and position of wealth and importance which she now holds.

And it is quite fair to draw a general conclusion regarding them, based upon such evidences of their capabilities as they afforded in California; for not only did they form a very considerable proportion of the population, but, as among people of other nations, there were also among them men of all classes.

In many respects they were a most valuable addition to the population of the country, especially in the cities, but as colonisers and subjugators of a new country, their inefficiency was very apparent. They appeared to want that daring and independent spirit of individual self-reliance which impels an American or Englishman to disregard all counsel and companionship, and to enter alone into the wildest enterprise, so long as he himself thinks it feasible; or, disengaging himself for the time being from all communication with his fellow-men, to plunge into the wilderness, and there to labour steadily, uncheered by any passing pleasure, and with nothing to sustain him in his determination but his own confidence in his ability ultimately to attain his object.

One scarcely ever met a Frenchman travelling alone in search of diggings; whereas the Americans and English whom one encountered were nearly always solitary individuals, “on their own hook,” going to some distant part where they had heard the diggings were good, but at the same time ready to stop anywhere, or to change their destination according to circumstances.

The Frenchmen were too gregarious; they were either found in large numbers, or not at all. They did not travel about much, and, when they did, were in parties of half-a-dozen. While Americans would travel hundreds of miles to reach a place which they believed to be rich, the great object of the Frenchmen, in their choice of a location, seemed to be, to be near where a number of their countrymen were already settled.

But though they were so fond of each other’s company, they did not seem to possess that cohesiveness and mutual confidence necessary for the successful prosecution of a joint undertaking. Many kinds of diggings could only be worked to advantage by companies of fifteen or twenty men, but Frenchmen were never seen attempting such a combination. Occasionally half-a-dozen or so worked together, but even then the chances were that they squabbled among themselves, and broke up before they had got their claim into working order, and so lost their labour from their inability to keep united in one plan of operations.

In this respect the Americans had a very great advantage, for, though strongly imbued with the spirit of individual independence, they are certainly of all people in the world the most prompt to organise and combine to carry out a common object. They are trained to it from their youth in their innumerable, and to a foreigner unintelligible, caucus-meetings, committees, conventions, and so forth, by means of which they bring about the election of every officer in the State, from the President down to the policeman; while the fact of every man belonging to a fire company, a militia company, or something of that sort, while it increases their idea of individual importance, and impresses upon them the force of combined action, accustoms them also to the duty of choosing their own leaders, and to the necessity of afterwards recognising them as such by implicit obedience.

Certain it is that, though the companies of American miners were frequently composed of what seemed to be most incongruous materials--rough uneducated men, and men of refinement and education--yet they worked together as harmoniously in carrying out difficult mining and engineering operations, under the directions of their “captain,” as if they had been a gang of day-labourers who had no right to interfere as to the way in which the work should be conducted.

The captain was one of their number, chosen for his supposed ability to carry out the work; but if they were not satisfied with his performances, it was a very simple matter to call a meeting, at which the business of deposing, or accepting the resignation of the incompetent officer, and appointing a successor, was put through with all the order and formality which accompanies the election of a president of any public body. Those who would not submit to the decision of the majority might sell out, but the prosecution of a work undertaken was never abandoned or in any way retarded by the discordance of opinion on the part of the different members of the company.

Individuals could not work alone to any advantage. All mining operations were carried on by parties of men, varying in number according to the nature of their diggings; and the strange assortment of dissimilar characters occasionally to be found thus brought into close relationship was but a type of the general state of society, which was such as completely to realise the idea of perfect social equality.

There are occasions on which, among small communities, an overwhelming emotion, common to all, may obliterate all feeling of relative superiority; but the history of the world can show no such picture of human nature upon the same scale as was to be seen in the mines, where, among a population of hundreds of thousands of men, from all parts of the world, and from every order of society, no individual or class was accounted superior to another.

The cause of such a state of things was one which would tend to produce the same result elsewhere. It consisted in this, that each man enjoyed the capability of making as much money as his neighbour; for hard labour, which any man could accomplish with legs and arms, without much assistance from his head, was as remunerative as any other occupation--consequently, all men indiscriminately were found so employing themselves, and mining or any other kind of labour was considered as dignified and as honourable a pursuit as any other.

In fact, so paramount was this idea, that in some men it created an impression that not to labour was degrading--that those who did not live by actual physical toil were men who did not come up to the scratch--who rather shirked the common lot of all, “man’s original inheritance, that he should sweat for his poor pittance.” I recollect once arriving in the middle of the night in San Francisco, when it was not by any means the place it now is, and finding all the hotels full, I was compelled to take refuge in an establishment which offered no other accommodation to the public than a lot of beds--half-a-dozen in a room. When I was paying my dollar in the morning for having enjoyed the privilege of sleeping on one of these concerns, an old miner was doing the same. He had no coin, but weighed out an ounce of dust, and while getting his change he seemed to be studying the keeper of the house, as a novel and interesting specimen of human nature. The result showed itself in an expression of supreme contempt on his worn and sunburnt features, as he addressed the object of his contemplation: “Say now, stranger, do you do nothin’ else but just sit thar and take a dollar from every man that sleeps on them beds?”

“Yes, that’s my business,” replied the man.

“Well, then,” said the miner after a little further reflection, “it’s a d--d mean way of making your living, that’s all I can say.”

This idea was natural enough to the man who so honestly expressed it, but it was an exaggeration of that which prevailed in the mines, for no occupation gave any man a superiority over his neighbours; there was no social scale in which different classes held different positions, and the only way in which a man could distinguish himself from others was by what he actually had in him, by his own personal qualities, and by the use he could make of them; and any man’s intrinsic merit it was not difficult to discover; for it was not as in countries where the whole population is divided into classes, and where individuals from widely different stations are, when thrown together, prevented, by a degree of restraint and hypocrisy on both sides, from exhibiting themselves exactly as they would to their ordinary associates. Here no such obstacle existed to the most unreserved intercourse; the habitual veil of imposition and humbug, under which men usually disguise themselves from the rest of the world, was thrown aside as a useless inconvenience. They took no trouble to conceal what passed within them, but showed themselves as they were, for better or for worse as the case might be--sometimes, no doubt, very much for the worse; but in most instances first impressions were not so favourable as those formed upon further acquaintance.

Society--so to call it--certainly wanted that superfine polish which gives only a cold reflection of what is offered to it. There was no pinchbeck or Brummagem ware; every man was a genuine solid article, whether gold, silver, or copper: he was the same sterling metal all the way through which he was on the surface; and the generous frankness and hearty goodwill which, however roughly expressed, were the prevailing characteristics of the miners, were the more grateful to the feelings, as one knew that no secondary or personal motive sneaked beneath them.

It would be hard to say what particular class of men was the most numerous in the mines, because few retained any distinguishing characteristic to denote their former position.

The backwoodsman and the small farmer from the Western States, who formed a very large proportion of the people, could be easily recognised by many peculiarities. The educated man, who had lived and moved among gentlemen, was also to be detected under any disguise; but the great mass of the people were men who, in their appearance and manners, afforded little clue to their antecedents.

From the mode of life and the style of dress, men became very much assimilated in outward appearance, and acquired also a certain individuality of manner, which was more characteristic of what they now were--of the independent gold-hunter--than of any other order of mankind.

It was easy enough, if one had any curiosity on the subject, to learn something of a man’s history, for there was little reserve used in alluding to it. What a man had been, mattered as little to him as it did to any one else; and it was refreshing to find, as was generally the case, that one’s preconceived ideas of a man were so utterly at variance with the truth.

Among such a motley crowd one could select his own associates, but the best-informed, the most entertaining, and those in many respects the most desirable, were not always those whose company one could have enjoyed where the inseparable barriers of class are erected;--and it is difficult to believe that any one, after circulating much among the different types of mankind to be found in the mines, should not have a higher respect than before for the various classes which they represented.